Staten Island Yankees pick up first win of 2010

The surest way for any baseball team to break a losing streak, whether it’s two games or 20, is to have a starting pitcher take the hill and completely shut down the opposition.

Sunday afternoon at the Richmond County Bank Ballpark, right-hander Mike O’Brien fired seven innings of two-hit ball as the Staten Island Yankees earned their first victory of the season, a 2-1 win over the visiting Brooklyn Cyclones. The Baby Bombers take the road for a pair of games against the Hudson Valley Renegades today and tomorrow before returning for a five-game homestand beginning on Wednesday, and manager Jody Reed knows how important it is to get the first win under the belt.

“It will take the pressure off these kids,” Reed said. “Most of these kids have never played in front of these kind of crowds and the tendency is for them to press. Now that they are getting settled in, they’ll calm down and start playing baseball.”

O’Brien was in command from the first pitch as the 20-year-old out of Salem, Va. struck out four and issued just one walk, and surrendered one unearned run.

“Mike did a terrific job today,” Reed said. “That’s just what we needed. He was on schedule to go just six innings, but he was so efficient with his pitches that we got another inning out of him.”

The Yanks scored a run in the third when Garrison Lassiter lead off the inning with a triple down the right-field line and one-out later scored on Isaiah Brown’s bloop double over first base.

O’Brien made that run hold up until the sixth when an errant throw by first baseman Carlos Urena knotted the score at one apiece.

O’Brien got that extra frame to work and breezed through the seventh, and the Yanks rewarded their hurler when they scored the game-winner in the bottom of the frame.

Jose Mojica singled to left and Lassiter dropped a perfect bunt to the left.

Cyclones third baseman Jet Butler rushed the throw and fired over the head of first baseman Jeff Flagg, and the Yanks had a 2-1 lead.

“I think most of the guys are starting to relax a little,” said Lassiter, a 20-yard-old infielder from High Point, N.C. who was signed straight out of high school in 2008 and had a hand in both Yankee runs. “The crowds don’t bother me because I played for Charleston last year and they had some pretty big crowds. The only change I’m adjusting to is the move to third base from short, where I basically played most of my life. But even that is no problem. I believe I’m a good enough athlete that I can play just about anywhere on the field.”

Relievers Preston Claiborne and Chase Whitley worked 1-2-3 innings in the eighth and ninth as the Yanks improved to 1-2 and the Cyclones absorbed their first loss.

NOTES: Following the disastrous situation at the concession stands on Opening Night, the Yankees’ staff went right to work to rectify the problems.

“We stayed here until four in the morning to redesign the entire layout,” said Yankees’ president Joe Ricciutti. “We brought the electricians in and worked right up until game time today to fix things.”

The hard work apparently paid off as the lines were short yesterday even with a sellout crowd on hand.